Discourses by Epictetus (good books to read for beginners txt) 📕

requires)? If he has principles (δόγματα) from which come his affects (ὅρμαι) and his acts (πράξεις)?” ↩

He uses the word δόγματα, which contains the same element or root as δοκεῖ, ἔδοξε. ↩

A Scholasticus is one who frequents the schools; a studious and literary person, who does not engage in the business of active life. ↩

The line is from the prayer of Ulysses to Athena: “Hear me child of Zeus, thou who standest by me always in all dangers, nor do I even move without thy knowledge.” Socrates said that the gods know everything, what is said and done and thought (Xenophon, Memorabilia i 1, 19). Compare Cicero, De Natura Deorum i 1, 2; and Richard Price’s dissertation “On Providence,” section i. Epictetus enumerates the various opinions about the gods in ancient times. The reader may consult the notes in Johann Schweighäuser’s edition. The opinions about God among modern nations, who are called civilized, and are so more or less, do not seem to be so varied as in ancient times: but the contrasts in modern opinions are striking. These modern opinions vary between denial of a God, though the number of those who deny is perhaps not large, and the superstitious notions about God and his administration of the world, which are taught by teachers, learned and ignorant, and exercise a great power over the minds of those who are unable or do not dare to exercise the faculty of reason. ↩

“To follow God,” is a Stoical expression. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations x 11. ↩

This means that we ought to learn to be satisfied with everything that happens, in fact with the will of God. This is a part of education, according to Epictetus. But it does not appear in our systems of education so plainly as it does here. Marcus Aurelius (Meditations iv 23): “Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O universe. Nothing for me is too early nor too late, which is in due time for thee.” ↩

John Upton has collected the passages in which this doctrine was mentioned. One passage is in Aulus Gellius (Attic Nights vi 1), from the fourth book of Chrysippus On Providence, who says: “nothing is more foolish than the opinions of those who think that good could have existed without evil.” Johann Schweighäuser wishes that Epictetus had discussed more fully the question on the nature and origin of Evil. He refers to the commentary of Simplicius on the Enchiridion of Epictetus, chapter 13 (8), and 34 (27), for his treatment of this subject. Epictetus (Enchiridion, c. 27) says that “as a mark is not set up for the purpose of missing it, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the universe.” Simplicius observes (p. 278, ed. Schweighäuser): “The Good is that which is according to each thing’s nature, wherein each thing has its perfection: but the Bad is the disposition contrary to its nature of the thing which contains the bad, by which disposition it is deprived of that which is according to nature, namely, the good. For if the Bad as well as the Good were a disposition and perfection of the form (εἴδους) in which it is, the bad itself would also be good and would not then be called Bad.” ↩

The word is ὑποθέσεις. It is explained by what follows. ↩

“Et quota pars homo sit terrai totius unus.” Lucretius, De Rerum Natura vi 652, and Marcus Aurelius, Meditations ii 4. ↩

The original is δόγμασι, which the Latin translators render “decretis,” and Elizabeth Carter “principles.” I don’t understand either. I have rendered the word by “thoughts,” which is vague, but I can do no better. It was the Stoic doctrine that the human intelligence is a particle of the divine. Carter names this “one of the Stoic extravagancies, arising from the notion that human souls were literally parts of the Deity.” But this is hardly a correct representation of the Stoic doctrine. ↩

Elizabeth Carter compares Job 31:15: “Did not he that made me in the womb make him (my manservant)? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” ↩

I suppose he means human laws, which have made one man a slave to another; and when he says “dead men,” he may mean mortal men, as contrasted with the gods or God, who has made all men brothers. ↩

Things appear to be separate, but there is a bond by which they are united. “All this that you see, wherein things divine and human are contained, is One: we are members of one large body” (Seneca, Epistle 95). “The universe is either a confusion, a mutual involution of things and a dispersion; or it is unity and order and providence” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations vi 10): also vii 9, “all things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy; and there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing.” See also Cicero, De Natura Deorum ii 7; and De Oratore, iii 5. ↩

The word is συμπαθεῖν. Cicero (De Divinatione ii 69) translates συμ πάθειαν by “continuatio conjunctioque naturae.” ↩

Compare Emanuel Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 349⁠–⁠356. ↩

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations v 27: “Live with the gods. And he does live with the gods who constantly shows to them that his